See Me
by Ayrith
Summary: [HojoKago] The present can never become the past.


_Inspired partly by Morbidity's "Simplicity". (Read now, dammit!!) I know, I know, I need to get to my Inu/san fics, but I couldn't help it!!_

**See Me**

**By Ayrith**

She was an honest girl. Honest and clever and loving and kind. Innocent and trusting to a fault, giving everyone the benefit of the doubt and the golden of her heart. Who hadn't been tainted with darkness and false images of paradise, who hadn't lived in dirt and ideals that were ingrained into there very lives of the people around her. Who couldn't _survive_ on her own like others. Because she was the kind of girl that wanted the best for everyone.

Maybe that's why she had been so easy to fool. Maybe that was why she had been so easy for them to use. But, that didn't matter right now anymore…

Because she was done.

She told herself this was for him. For all of the _him's_ out there that could never see beyond the past, who clung to beauty and grace that was far more superior then she. For all the times that her face was a drawing board on which to paste their own picture of perfection. For all the times she was just a body to imagine was someone else's. For all the times her heart was used as a replacement for loneliness, and betrayal, love and despair. For everyone who used her because she was just too innocent to realize the truth until it was too late.

There were a lot of them, she had realized, only as always, too late.

So as she gave up on reforming the past into the present, she gave up entirely in her future.

Her face was hard, cold as she turned away from him, the small of her green skirt fluttering harshly. With a jerk, she reached up, wrapped her slim pale fingers around a small, delicate glass bottle and tore it from its chain, breaking it, ignoring the sharp knives of glass that sliced the thin membrane of her skin. Dark, red stained glass pieces scattered themselves into the rich soil and yet she left them there, just as she left him there.

Left her heart there.

"…Don't…" his voice was close, but she continued on, letting the blood drip from her tanned fingers to twirl endlessly in the bright unaffected sunlight. She would miss the sun and its prettiness here, she would miss the fresh clean air and the beauty and the seclusion that clung wreathlike in the air. She would miss that; that was all that she would allow herself to miss.

"…Don't…" Again he called. He was closer. Her steps picked up, her alarm rising, bubbling like froth and expanding. And then in front of her there was her ticket, there was her exit, her escape. She reached out towards it, her mind relieved even as her heart ached miserably. Almost there, almost…

She felt his hand reach out to her, hovering over the skin of her wrist, and she turned around and jerked back with a hoarse scream. "Don't touch me!!" Dark, cloudy eyes burned, glimmering with fright, and he stared at her in something akin to horror as the realization came to him.

She was afraid of him.

"I don't want you to touch me. I don't want you to hear me, I don't want you to think about me!!" She spat, her hair wildly flicking around her. "I don't want you to see me and see someone else!!" She took a step back.

She was done, again he realized. She was done. He began to panic. "What are you talking about? I don't!! I don't!!" There was hysteria in his voice, as though he really meant it. But she was too far gone, too tired of the lies, too angry to pretend.

Too tired to let him win even when her heart cried for her to stop.

"Your just like them." She took a step backward, hovering just over the edge of her fall. Her eyes glimmered with hatred, hatred for the face she wore and the people who allowed themselves to be fooled. "Your just like them."

And then she fell and she was gone.

And when he disappeared from her sight and she was over on the other side and away from him, she was scrambling out. She was running wildly, scrambling from anything that so much as reminded her of the past. And she was angry, and her eyes were blurry, and her face was as hard as stone as she ran, away from everything…everything.

And then she fell to the floor and gave into her tears and lay in that one spot for hours.

"Why?" That was the question she cried. "Why?" She asked the sky and the sun and she even asked the moon and the stars when they came to visit her, because they were her only company. She was tired and broken, but she wanted to know _why._

Her answer was long prolonged and heart-breaking, but it came and found her none the less.

"…Higurashi-san? Are you okay?"

She didn't look at him. But she forced her expression into solace, forced her heart to stop aching, forced her tears to never fall again. Not for _him_ at least. Not for the man who owned her heart.

She died then, in that very spot. But no one, especially not the naïve boy in front of her, knew that.

Finally she looked up at him, saw his worried expression, and sighed. Found the answer she had been looking for. Resigned herself to her fate.

Because the past was always the past. And the future would always be the future. Because no matter how hard she tried, no one from then would ever truly see her, would ever truly understand her. She was different, would always be different to _them._

But…this boy, this naïve innocent boy…at least _he_ would see her. See her for _her. _Because she was all he knew. He didn't know the past. Didn't know that _woman. _Because…he couldn't be like the others…he...

She realized faintly she wasn't so sure. She realized bitterly she didn't want to know.

And then her hands where on his shoulders in an instant and before he realized it, she was kissing him.

Because there would always be a line separating the future from the past. Because one could never cross it.

Because she had been foolish to think she could.

He was too shocked to respond, but surprisingly, she was glad. Glad that he didn't kiss her back just yet and tear her heart even further. So when she pulled away and saw his surprised expression, she smiled. Because she knew that was what she was supposed to do. And no one, especially not the naïve boy in her arms, knew that it was forced. No one knew that she was gone.

Only she knew…

"Yes…yes I'm fine now…Houjou-kun."

She wasn't fine…but no one had to know that…


End file.
